


A Free Man

by itsalwaystheapocalypse



Category: Shades of Magic - V. E. Schwab
Genre: Canon Compliant, Light Angst, Pre-Canon, holland is a sad man okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-05
Updated: 2020-11-05
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:27:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27393481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itsalwaystheapocalypse/pseuds/itsalwaystheapocalypse
Summary: Request from Tumblr Anon: "Could you give us a drabble set before Endurance? Where Kell is still hopelessly pining over Holland and noticing all these little things about him even though Holland is all "I am not like you." (And Holland is secretly aware that Kell feels this way?)"While this is less overtly pining and is canon compliant, I think it still hits on what Anon was looking for."Kell is not following Holland Vosijk.He’s not - it might look like he is, since he’s trailed White London’s captive royal magician for blocks now through the red-soaked twilight like some besotted lover, but-It’s just that seeing Holland in the city when it’s not time for the monthly visit with communications from his monarchs is suspicious, and Kell isn’t following, he’s just... it’s a coincidence. Kell has errands to run, places to go, and he is absolutely one hundred percent not following Holland Vosijk."
Comments: 1
Kudos: 12





	A Free Man

Kell is not following Holland Vosijk.

He’s not - it might _look_ like he is, since he’s trailed White London’s captive royal magician for blocks now through the red-soaked twilight like some besotted lover, but-

It’s just that seeing Holland in the city when it’s not time for the monthly visit with communications from his monarchs is suspicious, and Kell isn’t following, he’s just... it’s a coincidence. Kell has errands to run, places to go, and he is absolutely one hundred percent _not following Holland Vosijk._

Holland takes a hard right down an alleyway and Kell’s steps speed up, just a little. He makes it to the alley to see Holland take another turn, and Kell knows where the next bit of alleyway will take him.

He moves fast - a slash of the wrist and the drawing of a symbol in new fresh blood, a whispered spell and a moment’s focus. It’s harder, to travel within the same world, but he knows where Holland is going and he’s drawn a symbol in a hidden place there a long, long time ago.

The eternal wrinkle of worry, the crease between his eyebrows, deepens as h pushes into the symbol and lets it take him.

As Tascen takes forever - and less than a second - both at once, and Kell steps out closer to the Isle, the red glow that has been his entire memory of the sky, the water, stronger than ever. He pulls his coat close, although Arnesian nights never have more than the perfect hint of a chill to bring the need for hot drinks, and never the bone-breaking cold he feels in White London.

A flash of a white half-cloak and a head of charcoal hair, a deep black faded by time and his dying world. Kell sees Holland moving through the crowd in silence and moves after him.

His errands are forgotten - he’s following Holland Vosijk, now. He can’t really pretend otherwise.

Rhy will no doubt lose his voice laughing at this, later - and Kell will end up telling him, giving in to the bright curiosity and good-natured mocking that he knows will follow. He’s never been good at lying to Rhy - not for long, anyway. Not without it blowing spectacularly up in his face when he tries. 

Kell hunches his shoulders, knowing he stands head and shoulders above most Arnesians, and his pale skin and shock of red hair don’t help. He can pretend to be inconspicuous, but everyone here knows he’s the Aven Vares, the cursed/blessed prince.

If there’s even a single person who didn’t know him by sight, his mismatched eyes - a pale blue and then a glossy, deep stonelike black - give him away for what he is.

He trails Holland, unseen by the other Antari, to a small house on the other end of the docks. Holland gives a curious sort of knock, a code, and after a moment the door opens to show a thin woman with wavy, lustrous hair who smiles and beckons him inside.

Kell leans against a wall, hidden, he thinks, in shadow. Holland puts up a hand, shakes his head. The two of them speak, too far away for Kell to understand. He tries to infer from gesture and expression, but Holland is a man of perfect emptiness, as always. His gestures are curt, slight. Even his movements seem like faded shadows when compared to the Arnesian tendency to gesture widely and wildly at all times, gesturing as a kind of tone, a form of punctuation.

Holland turns his head, just slightly, and Kell catches his breath at the way the nighttime shadows, darkening now that the sun has set and the Isle’s red glow is the light of the world, hit him just right. For a moment, Kell is absolutely sure that single green eye, and his black Antari eye, are focused right on Kell.

Then he turns back, presses a coin into the woman’s hand, and walks away from the house. 

Kell isn’t going to follow him.

What Holland does is his own business, and he’s never liked Kell’s interest in his life, in who he is.

He’s not following Holland Vosijk.

He’s not-

Kell takes one step and then another, but by the time he catches up, all he finds of Holland’s next destination is a faded blood symbol painted on a wall.

_As Tascen._

Wherever Holland has gone, it’s within the same world, and so he must have his own symbols painted here, too. Kell stands there, vexed and not wanting to admit it. This was a fool’s errand, pointlessness. He’s suspicious of a man he doesn’t know, who isn’t even here on the Danes’ business so far as he can tell. But then - he’s always suspicious. Someone has to worry for Rhy, who never thinks to worry for himself.

Kell has always been uniquely good at being worried.

There’s a tap to his shoulder and he spins, shocked, only to find Holland Vosijk standing just behind him, so close he can smell the strange scent of White London that hangs around the man, a smell of cold and pine, smoke from ten thousand chimneys and the mead they make that sours Kell’s mouth and gives him the worst hangovers of his life the next day. 

“Wh-what-”

“Don’t follow me,” Holland says, flatly. “It’s rude.”

“I-... I wasn’t. Or, if I was, you’re not due for eight more days.” Kell pulls himself o his full height, trying to look intimidating.

Holland looks the opposite of intimidated.

“I am a free man, here,” Holland says in the same tone, unchanging. “I go where I will. Don’t follow me.” 

He turns to leave, and before he can think better of it, Kell grabs him by one arm, feeling the muscle tense as Holland turns the full force of his hostile stare on him once again.

“I suppose I should add don’t touch me to my suggestions of polite behavior,” Holland says, the first hint of an edge to his tone.

Something in Kell twists with a strange sort of thrill at the sound. He swallows past it, trying to ignore it, and drops his hand. “Why... I demand to know, as a representative of the crown... why are you _here?”_

Holland blinks at him, then gives him a faded smile utterly devoid of softness. “I have already answered your question, _lille prins.”_ He pulls his arm free of Kell’s grip, and this time Kell only stands, watching him walk away.

He feels a stab of sheer guilt for his suspicions when he realizes what answer Holland gave him. 

_I am a free man, here._

“That makes one of us,” Kell mutters, and turns back to head for home.


End file.
